Social engineering hackers — people who trick employees into doing and saying things that they shouldn’t — took their best shot at the Fortune 500 during a contest at Defcon Friday and showed how easy it is to get people to talk, if only you tell the right lie.

Contestants got IT staffers at major corporations, including Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Apple and Shell, to give up all sorts of information that could be used in a computer attack, including what browser and version number they were using (the first two companies called Friday were using IE6), what software they use to open pdf documents, their operating system and service pack number, their mail client, the antivirus software they use, and even the name of their local wireless network.

Now I would understand the ease with which social engineering would work with non-IT workers. But this contest was focused on IT workers whom you would think are more security conscious. But I guess after the Robin Sage story, I am not surprised.

The Robin Sage story broke in early July and I am late in getting to it. I was going to skip it, but it’s such a good story, I wanted to note it. The Dark Reading version is quite detailed.

The key though is straightforward – people accepted invitations from someone they did not know. It’s that simple. This is a type of “inside-out,” social engineering attack vector which has become the primary method of cyber criminals. Why bother with the traditional “outside-in” attack on network device or endpoint software vulnerabilities when all you need to do is lure the victim to a malware-laden web page.